Hell
by SSeselene
Summary: Oh Tom, oh Tom. They lied Tom, they lied. Go to Hell, I told them. Go to a million Hells. Take a visit to all of them and never come back to lie to me about my Tom, darling Tom. I missed you Tom,”


Found an old Tom ficlet and rewrote it. Apologies if this has been posted before. Paragraph 8 blatantly ripped from David Mack; so there.

Old Mrs. Winterson is the unofficial matriarch of the orphanage that Tom lives in. She's thin and sharp-faced like a needle; like a shiny needle. Her grey hair gleams in the musty, weak sunlight that manages to pierce the thick layer of dust on the orphanage windows.

She walks up and down the halls of the orphanage, her walker scraping against the floor, swinging it at some random boys who are tear past her, screaming scruffy-haired bundles of old donated clothes.

Everybody knows Tom is her favourite. It's hardly surprising, considering the things that Tom is. Scrubbed clean. Nice smile. Neat black hair. Doesn't talk a lot. Listens well; sitting there and looking straight at you, eyes somehow looking blankly into your brain, unconcerned by what it finds there. Can pretty much take anything. Stolid Tom. Smart Tom. A very marked contrast to the other boys his age at the orphanage.

When Tom was smaller, she used to call him to her room, lock the door behind him. Nobody asked what they did there. Probably nobody wanted to know.

She used to tell him about Hell. The different Hells that different cultures have; the traditional Hell of Satan and demons and endless pits of fire, the Hell of Nazis laughing at you, gassing you over and over again in shower stalls, naked. The Hell of the Japanese soldiers, with beady eyes, sallow skin, shrill giggles. The Hell of traitors, of turncoats, of those who turned against the grain.

Mrs. Winterson is very patriotic. Britain will win the War, she says proudly. All by ourselves, God Save the Queen, etc. The orphanage is too far away to hear the Blitz.

Tom sat on her lap and listened, absorbed it all. They have a Hell for everything, he thinks. To frighten children like him. Mrs. Winterson was relentless, her voice a high falsetto, trembling like two semi-quavers played on a piano at fever pitch in the air. Every evening, she sent for him; every evening, a hundred new Hells.

The Hell of a dragon in your skin. The Hell of being trampled by horses. The Hell of broken promises, crossing your heart, hoping to die -- a thousand needles in your eye.

When he comes back from Hogwarts for the holidays, everybody rushes to him, peering over this New Tom. Better dressed, better looking -- he gets a few glances that speak for more than just admiration from the older boys.

He looks for Mrs. Winterson, the comforting presence, the bitter tang in the air, courtesy of her metal walker. Later on, some boy whose name Tom can't recall tells him she took sick after he left.

Definitely too far gone, he says. His eyes turn bright. Listen, Tom, if you're free afterwards...

Desperation makes people do strange things.

Tom drops his trunk and runs all the way to Mrs. Winterson's room. And she's there, in her bed; a blunt needle, an unsharpened saw, eyes wide and unsightly mouth gaping. If Tom could draw, he would draw her as this: a rubbed-out chalk drawing, a wistful, insubstantial ghost of what was once sharply defined lines, sharply drawn laws.

No running in halls. No eating between meals. Lights out at 10. Absolutely no fighting.

Her filmy eyes glance over him. She gags on excess drool and tries to sit up. Tom is there, propping a hand behind her back, holding her sparrow-thin wrist.

She smiles at him. "Oh Tom, I knew you'd come back, I knew you'd come back..." She smiles again.

"I only went off to boarding school, Mrs. Winterson, I came back."

"They sent me that horrible letter. I was frightened, Tom. I thought you'd died again. Oh Tom, my baby," she croons, her voice now a low treble, haunted by the piano pedals pressing down on her mortality. Her head tips to the side and dribble pools by her chin, glistening. She hums.

"Mrs. Winterson, don't worry about me," says Tom. He holds her hand in his, grasps it, trying to make himself seem reassuring.

"Oh Tom, oh Tom. They lied Tom, they lied. Go to Hell, I told them. Go to a million Hells. Take a visit to all of them and never come back to lie to me about my Tom, darling Tom. I missed you Tom," and here she suddenly grips his hand hard, too hard. Tom jerks back in fright. "No, Tom," she says in a low, husky voice. "You're never going to leave me. Don't leave me. Don't leave me. Don't. You're never going to. I won't let you. No, you won't. You've always been Mother's good boy."

Tom tries to pull away. Her fingernails, uncut and jagged, dig into his knuckles. From her reclining position, she smiles at him, contentedly.

"No, you'll never. You've always been a good boy."

Her head lolls again to the side, and this time, doesn't look up again.

Tom tries to prise her hands off his right one; it's in some kind of death grip. The flesh is still warm, still slightly sticky from sweat. He attempts to stand up and shake it off; puts his foot up there and tries to stamp it down.

There's a loud crack and her fingers fall apart, splintering like spiders that have been stepped upon, splayed upon the sheets like the squiggly lines of Tom's handwriting.

He runs and almost screams when he can't open the door, almost wrenches the knob off. Runs up and down the halls, feet crushing down the floor, as if he is punishing the orphanage for some yet undiscovered sin.

Later on, he slides back into her room. Her body is cold and pale because nobody has bothered to call the morgue, or anybody yet. All the orphans are morbidly fascinated by the dead body in their midst; death has never happened to the people around them before.

Tom finds letters in a cigar box, letters to a son called Tom Winterson. A soldier, on the front line of war. He can almost imagine this other Tom, bravely fighting for God, Queen and Country, amidst pounding artillery. The letters have never been stamped.

Finally, he finds an official letter with a British military stamp on it. Tom Winterson has died, it says, fighting for God, Queen and Country. It is dated from when Tom turned 10, and began to bear this startling resemblance to Winterson. He wonders if there are a million more Toms, like coloured windows in infinity, passing by each other, occasionally connecting to form a startling and new colour, revealing new creatures and exposing old wounds.

Tom remembers all the times Mrs. Winterson used to call him to her room: "Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom. Come back. Come back." He'd thought she was calling him, and he was glad.

Desperation makes people do strange things.

A few days later, the body is starting to attract flies. Tom doesn't let anybody near it and when he walks past it, wonders if he could burn it down. And by now, Tom is quite sure that he's going to Hell. Probably all of them.


End file.
